The school brought together the teams from the Social Communication Sectors, the radio stations, Publishing houses, and the Salesian Bulletins from: Mexico, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina. Moreover, for the first sessions, the social communication sector team from Spain were also added concerning the themes proposed by the Department of Social Communication.

This school is a special program organized by the Social Communication Department of the Salesian Congregation with the collaboration of the Social Communication Coordinators of the various Regions.

The participants are Salesians and lay people of varying age groups and with various responsibilities within the communication sector.

“This school provides a communication training model so that the Delegates can adapt and apply it with the coordinators and their teams, according to local situations. It is a space for the unification of Salesian communication criteria that could bear great fruit. It is a wonderful opportunity to return to Don Bosco, making him relevant with the new advances in the communication sector,” said Fr Juan Pablo Abreu, Provincial Delegate for Social Communication of the Antilles Province.

 “I think it is important to have a space to unify the knowledge of all the teams and establish the direction together through what we are receiving and interacting with each other; it serves to update us and deepen the richness of the charism in terms of communication, especially for those of us who do not come from Salesian circles,” added Adriana Porteiro, Delegate for Social Communication of the Uruguay Province.

Vicente Fritz, Coordinator of the Salesian Bulletin of America, further added: “The importance of this school has to do with the exercise of collaboration, synergy and synodality at the level of communications on the continent, as well as having a foundation of knowledge and good practices and charismatic elements that allow us to develop our work in whichever sector of communication, we are deployed in. This is a meeting point, a platform of shared knowledge, and a means to know what to do in our mission as Delegates of Social Communication.”

“The Salesian School of Communication is important because it allows us to deepen our knowledge in the field of communication from a Salesian perspective. All the contents shared so far are in harmony with the current context of the Catholic Church and its guidelines on Communication. For us who work in Salesian setting, it is fundamental to deepen these teachings,” said Jocasta Pimentel, Coordinator of the Salesian radio stations in America.

It is hoped that this school will bear great fruit for the Congregation, not only for the learning of topics of great importance for the development of Social Communication in Salesian life, but also for the sharing of the cultural richness of the 16 countries involved, as well as for the experience made by each participant.

The dynamics is simple: participants connect once a month via Zoom. The meeting lasts 90 minutes: 60 minutes of presentation and 30 minutes of common reflection and questions. The speaker leading the session then offers a practical assignment for that month, which is shared in a Facebook group, where this topic can be shared during those four weeks. And then the speaker always offers further in-depth materials on the subject, such as books, series, films, websites etc.,

The ECO is spread over 15 months with the last session scheduled for November 2022.

The school was established as a response to the two action plans proposed by the Animation and Governing Project of the Social Communication Department (2020-2026) based on the programmatic proposal of the Rector Major after the 28th General Chapter: Living the Salesian Sacrament of Presence (Priority No. 3).

“We have a great challenge as communication managers in the different Regions of the Congregation, which is to keep up with the digital life that is progressing so rapidly. One of our responsibilities is to form ourselves because communication evolves, and the way of communicating is not the same as it was five years ago. Using the latest technologies for the mission is our primary responsibility. We must learn how to do it right. And we are committed to this,” concludes Zaida Navarrete, Regional Coordinator of Communications in America.

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